Notes from Exile: Week Four

Hello from my sofa. I'm still in the house, and for the first time on Sunday, I did not go with Hubs to do the weekly shop. That makes today the 8th one since I've left home. Just more water over the rocks, like the water flowing over those holy rocks there at Cane Creek Falls, right?

I've been out in the yard a few times, but the tree pollen is making that very difficult. Normally I have the blinds open here in the den so that I can at least see the yellow green of the trees that surround our house. But not today.

Today feels different somehow. I think that I was feeling very hopeful over the weekend - it is certainly easier to do that when Hubs is here. His work is still open, inexplicably, so he is there now and I worry so much that he will come in contact with someone who passes on this horrible illness to him. Yesterday, I was a good employee and sat in front of my laptop in my new office - complete with a new desk and chair - and did my usual triage/dispatch as I put out metaphorical fires at the DayJob™. I had a zoom staff meeting. Hubs came home for lunch. It was all still fairly hopeful.

Today, I sat down to the DayJob™ at that new desk and I logged into the VPN and...nothing. I mean there was nothing that I needed to worry about, nothing really to triage - once my students have the accommodations they need, they are off and don't really need me so much. I checked on a few things and updated my calendar. And I thought - I really processed how much longer there is that we will live like this.

And please don't misunderstand - I am so very thankful for a job that I can do from home. I am thankful that Hubs and I are still healthy and that I have my wonderful pups with me. But it just gets heavy sometimes. I was just watching the news on the BBC and they were interviewing a woman from Paris who said, "It's just heavy, this is starting to weigh on people."

There is some good news - the Nano seems to be coming along in a way this story world has not in past attempts. I really think that I will be able to work in a lot more of the previous attempts and I won't lose too much of it. I read through a great deal of past effort yesterday, and it made me sad to think of losing some of that world/those characters. I'm at the very least caught up with my word count target, so that is reason to celebrate. Normally by the end of the first week, I'm a hot mess of playing catch up and adding fluff that isn't needed, so this is nice to report.

So I remain in my house. I take Benadryl to combat the allergies. I look forward to the end of this month when hopefully we can start to get back to something like normal. See you next week - stay safe and keep healthy.